Contract Air Cargo (Trans Auto) at YIP - Questions

[On Your Six]

I have a friend of the family who is moving back to the Detroit area and he is interested in flying freight. He has pretty good experience and he is not interested in the regional to LCC or legacy path like most people. Does anyone have information on an operation called Contract Air Cargo (I think out of YIP). I know it operates some Convairs and a few 727-100s.

So, I am looking for some basic information: likely newhire FO salary on the Convair, QOL-schedule, domiciles, etc. Do 727 pilots start in the Convairs and move up? Also, I hear the Convairs are in pretty good shape and are fun to fly (if you have ear plugs).

Anyone care to comment on the pros and cons of Contract Air Cargo?

Thanks

 

[Sunnfun]

IFL flies Convairs and 727 out of YIP, maybe you're talking about them? Seems to be a good company, I talked to one of their Convair crews a while back. Here's their website with contact info: http://www.flytlc.com/iflb727.asp

Hope that helps.

 

[Hawkster54]

IFL is based out of Pontiac (KPTK). I am pretty sure that they have just finished down sizing. They have two DA-20's, 727's, and Convairs. Some Falcon crews are based out of McAllen TX, some Convair pilots are based on the east coast and the 727's apparently don't fly too often. It's all 135 on-demand freight. I've heard the pay is good as long as you cross international borders. Hope this helps

 

[727C47]

used to fly for them back in their DC-3,CV340,DC-4 ,CV580 days, good outfit,good mx, by the book as far as the regs go, you will earn a living, but you will be on call 24/7. Great flying though !

 

[pilotyip]

Do a search under IFL, you will get lots of information. I meet an IFL 727 guy last spring, he said he was averaging about 12 hours a month.

 

[wmudriver]

I know a couple of people who left IFL b/c flying has been so slow for the past year or so. When its busy, they seemed to like it and make decent money.
Back in '04, they had Convairs in PTK, in North Carolina, Phoenix (DVR?), and Port Isabel, TX. Don't know if they still have them there. Decent MX from what I hear. They switched to Part 121 from 125 a few years ago. I think they have Caravans, some nice Falcons, CV580's (in good shape) and 727's.

Autofreight lives and dies by the well-being's of the automakers/economy. I heard business has picked up recently though.

 

[JessMan]

The facts on IFL...
Main base is in Pontiac with 6 Convairs, a couple Falcons, and a 727. There's another Convair in JQF, near Charlotte and two more convairs in PIL near Brownsville, along the the other 727. Also there's a Falcon in McAllen TX. The Convair's and 727's are 121 and the Falcons are 135. Business has been slow all year, but has increased dramatically in the past three weeks for whatever reason. The only "reductions" that were done were to line crew and maybe MX, I think. No pilots have been let go due to slow business recently, to my knowledge. Overall it's a good company with excellent maintenance and a generally happy pilot group. As previously stated QOL is a 24/6 on-call with weekends off if it's not too busy, and pay is industry standard with benefits. Not sure if they're looking for pilots, probably not right now...so far I've only flown 300 hours YTD. Contract Air Cargo was the 125 name, and has been retired, changed to Gulf and Caribbean Cargo under 121. Most CV FO's don't move into the 727, instead they hold out for upgrade in the CV which is averaging 2 to 3 years now. As for the earplug stuff, any turbine engine is loud if you're standing next to it, but they're pretty quiet inside when flying with a headset.

 

[Flying Illini]

The whole on-demand freight business has been slow this year...except for the last 3 weeks, we've been getting our butts kicked (but the paychecks are nice!).

 

[RedGuy]

It's an ok company. I worked there for a couple years on ground support. My biggest bitch was that I came there to get on as an FO in the convair eventually and after 2 1/2 years it never happened. They never even gave me a shot, even though they hired several FO's during that time with less hours than me. I came to the conclusion that it was cheaper to keep me, an already trained and compitent line guy, on the ground, than train me as a pilot and train a new line guy. I also do know a couple of guys they REALLY screwed over hard too. One of them was injured on the job, got back on his feet after being off for over a year with a broken hip, came back for 1 day and they laid him off, which meant he was out of a job and out of dissability to since he worked for 1 day. That was just wrong.

 

[cherry20's]

I heard they have 3 Falcons now and looking at a 4th corporate bird. I do know the trashed two engines on two different birds in the last couple of weeks. Blew one up in ELP, literally. Put a hole about basketball sized in the cowl, still there I think. The other one had a jacket go through the engine IN FLIGHT after the door came open. They do have one still flying right now though. Not positive about the 2nd story, but thats what one of there pilots said the other night. They are sweet falcons though.

 

[cherry20's]

Take that back before I get corrected, two are flying right now. I guess they fixed the second one.

 

[Spoolingbyu]

Gulf and Caribbean Cargo (Trans-Auto) at PTK

I have a friend of the family who is moving back to the Detroit area and he is interested in flying freight.....

So, I am looking for some basic information: likely newhire FO salary on the Convair, QOL-schedule, domiciles, etc. Do 727 pilots start in the Convairs and move up? Also, I hear the Convairs are in pretty good shape and are fun to fly (if you have ear plugs).

Anyone care to comment on the pros and cons of Contract Air Cargo?

Thanks

You got some excellent factual information from Jessman, to which I am going to supplement and also add opinion since you seem to want some commentary.

newhire CV FO salary = $1k monthly paid during training. Monthly base guarantee pay is $1.5k first 6 months online, $2k thereafter. In addition, extra $$$ when flying over monthly guaranteed pay (based on sm flown, not hours), customs, wait time, and crew loads.

[It doesn't sound like the best, but IMHO, since we fly 300-400 hours a year, some nugget at a regional, oh let's just call him O'Connell Burnsides, has to get paid $48k a year minimum to be receiving equivalent pay, since they are working/flying twice as much, if not more.]

For more than 6 months out of the year I get paid to sit doing whatever I want as long as I can make the 20 minute callout and wheels up in 60.

QOL = depends what you make of it.

Yes, Convairs are in good shape. Yes, Convairs are fun to fly.

Mx is good, the 580s have varying equipment but generally good, and the 5800 is a sweet airplane.

You want the "pros & cons?" What is good for your friend depends on his goals.

Goals?

Fly Freight? IFL is good.
Build time quickly? IFL is fair. (What's the big rush?)
Good pilot group? IFL is great.
Build SIC turbine (and eventually PIC turbine?) IFL is good.
Super duper QOL/Pay/xmas party/company matched 401k/competitive health benefits/ = IFL not so good.

Job security is based on Automotive market health and not the airline passenger economy. Kinda a coin flip there.

One Falcon FO and one Convair FO recently left the company.
Some FO's are dual qualifed in both the CV580(0) and FA20.

The Boeing is a career killer at IFL unless you are already a CA in the darn thing. Looooooong time to upgrade there.

Bottom line? My advice would be to update your resume and get it in. Come see the D.O. in person. Be persistent.

I hope this helps, PM me if you have more questions from your friend.

As for the Falcon incident, I heard close to $2m to repair that "oopsie." News travels fast.

 

[NJA bound]

You will get a lot of good experience flying nonprecision approaches in the middle of the night into airports that you've never been to before, if you can stand the on demand lifestyle (pager going off at 100 am and you have to be at the plane in 20 minutes, gives you all of 3 minutes to shower and dressed in 2 minutes and out the door) work til 300 pm, rest til 100 am and than your next trip could be at that time but may not be until noon so work til 200 am than rest til noon and your next trip could ge right than but it's not, you're on call all day with a 20 minute call out, finally you get called for a trip at 100 am again so you'll work 14 hours after being up all day. It works out to having to be within 20 minutes of the airplane anytime after your 10 hours of rest our up.

Love the 91K rules at NetJets, never on call, before we shut down they must give us a report time that starts our 14 hours for the next day, beautiful. The pay is nice at NetJets also, made over 50K my 1st year as a copilot on a 7 on 7 off (15 days a month) schedule, and two 3 week vacations starting your first year, three 3 week vacations after 5 years and 4 after 10 years.

 

[RedGuy]

On call isn't too bad. Actually I prefer it when I can consistantly go out at the same time every day like you described in your post. But on an 8 hour flight day that almost never happens. What more often happens is that you may start out at 8-8am monday and end up on midnights by wednsday an back to days by friday. That can be rough. IFL is mostly 121 so I think they get 8 hour flight days and 16 hour duty days, they where just getting started with 121 when I was working there.